Ceilings, Moldings, Medallions, Lights & Fans

All the walls were constructed with the standard for 1910, which was wooden slats covered with thick plaster and finishing coat. Though the plaster had held up well from an adhesion standpoint over the past 100+ years, there was 1,500+ feet of linear cracks in the plaster walls alone. The ceiling cracks were much worse due to the sagging of the spans of ceiling joist holding them up. Every effort was made to try to repair the ceiling cracks, but each process failed within a few weeks. The decision was made to cover all the ceilings in the entire home with very thin 1/4" sheetrock. Heavy mudding was used to try to simulate the uneven finished of the original plaster. All ceiling joist were located and marked. Each sheet was lifted into place and secured with construction adhesive, follow by sheet rock screws into the marked ceiling joist. All of the original ceiling plaster remained in place above the new ceilings. All of the original plaster walls were repaired by grinding out the cracks into a wide "V" shape that was then repaired with reinforced sheetrock tape cut to fit and sheetrock mud. The repairs were usually below the original surface and where needed, the patch was floated out 2' on each side. The vast majority of the repairs are invisible and the unevenness of the original plaster was maintained.